For increased safety and driver awareness, especially during vehicle operation after dark, vehicles are generally equipped with lights. Headlights for forward illumination, parking lights, and brake pedal lights are several types of vehicle light. Brake pedal lights are generally activated when a foot operated brake pedal of the vehicle is operated.
Some break lights are activated only when the break pedal is depressed and generally do not give any indication of how quickly or how far the brake pedal is being depressed. This may result in an increased number of rear-end collisions, as a driver following behind the vehicle would be unaware of how fast or hard the brake pedal is being depressed.
To increase driver awareness, some braking systems provide an indication of intensity of braking. For example, such a braking system includes a circuit that is connected to a brake pedal position sensor in the form of a mechanical rheostat. The circuit adjusts the brightness of the brake lights based upon how far the brake pedal is depressed.
Other braking systems use an accelerometer carried by the vehicle to determine whether an acceleration exceeds a threshold. If the acceleration, for example, caused by hard braking, exceeds the threshold, then the brake lights are operated in a flashing mode. Additional improvements to braking intensity indicator systems may be desirable, for example, to increase drive awareness.